Nanny's Spiced Oat Drops

Uriah has been homesick.  I can just tell...and really, having lived far, far away from my own Mama for as many years as I have, I know the signs.  In an effort to give him a little bit of home over the weekend, I made his Nanny's Spiced Oat Drops and the sugary-est Sweet Tea ever (Nanny makes hers so sweet it'll make your teeth hurt. Allegedly.).

I don't drink sweet tea, it makes me want to curl up and die, but Uriah talks longingly about Nanny's sweet tea, so I brewed some tea and added the normal amount of sugar (I've gotten him down to a scant 1/3 cup of sugar in his pitcher, which is still a lot of sugar.), and then I added a little more sugar, for good measure.  And then, because maybe it wasn't at the Nanny level of sweet enough, I went ahead and made some simple syrup (if you'll recall, simple syrup is equal parts sugar and water - I did 1/2 cup ratio) and then I added all of that to the tea, stirred it up, shoved it into the refrigerator and waited patiently for Uriah to come home and see what a Missouri-baking-sweet-tea-making-goddess I turned out to be.

Apparently I went overboard with the sweet tea.  Uriah went into a sugar shock, actually, but apparently the cookies were just like he remembered.  Except that they were not the same size as Nanny would make (hers were smaller than mine) and they lacked that essential thing that I won't be able to give cookies for a long, long, long time...grandmotherly love.  But other than, you know, killing him with sugar and making mediocre cookies, I think I was successful in giving Uriah a little bit of Missouri in Iowa.

And, for the record, Finn double-fisted the cookies, so obviously he thinks that the love I added was sufficient.  And, if I aged the photo above just a little bit, you'd be looking at the spitting image of Uriah at one year old, blond hair, curls and all.

• 1 cup shortening
• 1 ½ cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs – beaten
• 2 cups flour
• Dash of salt
• 2 teaspoons baking power
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground cloves
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1 ½ cup quick-cooking oats
• 2 cups chocolate chips*
• 1 cup nuts - chopped

Cream together the shortening and the sugar; add the beaten eggs.  Add all of the dry ingredients and mix.  Add the milk and mix.  Add the nuts and chocolate chips and mix.  Drop by small spoonful on greased or parchment –lined baking sheet.  Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 15 minutes.  Allow to cool 1-2 minutes on the pan, then remove to wire rack to cool completely.  Store in an air-tight container.

*Can substitute raisins.

**Edited to add chocolate chips into the recipe...somehow I deleted the most important part!